miR-211 suppresses hepatocellular carcinoma by downregulating SATB2

Abstract

// Guixing Jiang 1 , Yunfu Cui 2 , Xin Yu 3 , Zhengrong Wu 1 , Guoping Ding 1 , Liping Cao 1 1 Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China 2 Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery, Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China 3 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China Correspondence to: Liping Cao, e-mail: caolipingzju@126.com Keywords: hepatocellular carcinoma, microRNAs, miR-211, SATB2 Received: January 08, 2015      Accepted: January 31, 2015      Published: March 25, 2015 ABSTRACT Dysregulation of microRNAs (miRs) is involved in carcinogenesis. Deregulation of miR-211 has recently been observed in many tumors, but its function in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is still unknown. Here we found that miR-211 was decreased in HCC cancer tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues. We also found that overexpression of miR-211 repressed proliferation and invasion in HepG2 and SMMC7721 cells. Luciferase reporter assays and western blot indicated that special AT-rich sequence-binding protein-2 (SATB2), is a direct target of miR-211. The expression of SATB2 was upregulated in HCC cancer tissues and cell lines and miR-211 levels inversely correlated with SATB2 levels in HCC. Importantly, SATB2 rescued the miR-211-mediated inhibition of cell invasion and proliferation. Finally, reintroduction of miR-211 repressed tumor formation of HCC in xenograft mice. This study provides insights into molecular mechanisms that miR-211 contributed to HCC.